2 SMALL GROUPS AND INTERACTION
2.3 Small groups, micro-cultures, and interaction orders
Taking a more cultural stand on small groups, some scholars have combined the features of studying everyday interactions in groups and the explicit research approach of small groups. Investigations of this nature do not form a unified research approach but nevertheless stem from somewhat similar starting points, mainly symbolic interactionism, and micro-sociology as well as social constructivist psychology.
Broadly, these cultural perspectives consider individual behavior inextricably intertwined with interactions, interpersonal relations, and group memberships. All these approaches look at small groups as micro-cultures consisting of individuals who share a sense of belonging and study how interpersonal interactions are guided by the group structures and how, on the other hand, groups are structured through interaction. In this study, these approaches are referred to as micro-cultural group studies with their focus on local group cultures, interaction orders, and structures.
For example, Norman Denzin (1999) has applied a social interactionist approach to small groups by combining the study of orderliness of interaction and the open-ended nature of small group processes and interaction. Denzin considered small groups as arenas of interaction that are guided and controlled by a shared interaction order.
Constructed through previous histories and experiences, individual interaction repertoires, and social relations with their analogical identities, interaction orders can break, and continue in a stream-like fashion. Similarly, Peter Hartley (1997) has outlined a micro-cultural model of small groups that suggests bringing together individual and collective viewpoints. In his integrative model, Hartley (1997, pp.
29–31) outlined three distinct features of small groups and group life: the often-undetected level of interpersonal underworld, the level of tasks and procedures, and the level of social and cultural background. The first level refers to hidden agendas of individuals, the second to the observable surface behavior in groups and the third to the cultural and ideological surroundings of groups. This model suggests that groups should always be investigated both on the interpersonal and contextual levels.
Analogously, Denzin (1999, p. 308) has criticized the container model of small groups, commonly represented by the experimental approaches, that often study newly formed groups that have been assembled by the researchers with mere research purpose.
Accordingly, instead of studying groups in controlled settings through experimental methodologies, research should focus on natural, already existing groups with their specific histories, interaction orders, norms, and identities.
Within small group research paradigms, micro-cultural approaches are usually located under the symbolic–interpretive perspective (Frey and Sunwolf 2004; 2005).
According to the key figures of the field, Lawrence Frey and Sunwolf (2004; 2005) characterized the symbolic–interpretive perspective on small group dynamics as the study of how groups and group members use symbols such as discourse and objects in communicating and what individual and collective outcomes the use of these symbols has. Additionally, the aims of this approach are on the group level of action investigating “how groups and group dynamics themselves are products of such symbolic activity” (Frey & Sunwolf, 2004, p. 278). Drawing its starting points from hermeneutics, social phenomenology, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, and social constructionism, this approach brings the themes discussed as the result of the interpretive turn to the context of small group dynamics. However, as Frey and Sunwolf (2004) stated, this perspective “has not been formally articulated with respect to groups per se” (Frey & Sunwolf, 2004, p. 277), which to a certain extent can be understood due to its multifaceted background as well as methodological plurality.
Gary Alan Fine has outlined perhaps the most articulated conceptualization of micro-cultural small group studies. He took the symbolic interactionist, and to a large extent, the starting points of the symbolic–interpretive perspective, as a point of departure for small group investigations. For Fine, the concept of culture is essential.
According to Fine (e.g., Fine 2012a; 2012b), micro-cultures hold a predominant role in constituting the civil society. For Fine (2012a), small groups create local cultures and form arenas of action with their own sets of social norms and collective histories. In this context, small groups function as the nexus between the society and interpersonal interaction and interaction orders. It is the local group culture that provides the link between interaction and structure (Fine, 2012a, p. 3). As a micro-cultural perspective to small groups, Fine (2012a, p. 159) referred to this approach as a “local sociology on the meso-level.” By referring to the meso-level as the middle ground between societal macro-level and interpersonal micro-level, Fine (2012a; see also Harrington & Fine, 2006) highlighted the importance of explicit small group research that considers the cultural, interactional, and structural elements of group life. It is the meso-level of analysis, the explicit focus on the small group level that “enriches both the structural and interactional approaches, stressing shared and ongoing meaning” (Fine, 2012a, p. 159). From this micro-cultural perspective, small groups establish different kinds of standards for appropriate behavior that becomes apparent in the form of local interaction orders that form specific arenas of social action.
Starting from the conceptualizations of Erving Goffman, Fine (2012a) regarded the analysis of interaction orders as the key in understanding small groups, their cultures,
and development. Interaction orders establish the cultural foundation for action as the
“local context, or the set of shared understandings arising from continuing interaction”
(Fine, 2012a, p. 160). According to Goffman (1983), interaction order refers to the organized patterns of body-to-body interactions that rely on the previous experiences of the interaction participants. In other words, interaction order defines the context-specific ways for appropriate interpersonal behavior based on previous experiences.
Consequently, in the small group context, interaction orders can be considered as the historical by-products of previous experiences that set the limits for appropriate and expected behavior in a small group.
For micro-cultural small group perspective, the cornerstone of analysis is the detailed analysis of interaction orders through, for example, small group conversations.
The focus of analysis, then, is on the everyday lives of small groups. As for the unit of analysis, both Norman Denzin (1999) and Rom Harré (1993), two of the key advocators for micro-cultural investigations in social psychological research, suggested the analysis of everyday episodes and situations of social life. From the perspective of the analysis of interaction orders, social situations entail objective, subjective, and interactive frames all of which play a significant role in the creation and re-creation of an interaction order. The objective frame refers to the physical surroundings of the situation, that is, where the social situation takes place. Individuals taking part in the situation with their own thoughts and feelings constitute the subjective frame, whereas the interactions and roles of participants constitute the interactive frame (Denzin, 1999, pp. 300–301).
This micro-cultural, meso-level of analysis has been applied to a variety of different issues, such as investigations in group memberships and social identity, collective action in small groups, and the “idiocultures,” the local group cultures (Fine, 2012b).
One particularly interesting emerging field of investigation is the application of the micro-cultural perspective to the study of organizational life that emphasizes the explicit investigation of small groups in the formation of organizational culture (Fine
& Hallett, 2014). Drawing on vast ethnographic studies, Fine, and his colleagues have addressed a variety of issues and themes in this context. These include how idiocultures of small groups can create differentiation with in relation to the broader organizational culture, how small group cultures come into being through different kinds of performances, and how the culture of a small group can assist the group to manage organizational threats (Fine & Hallett, 2014; Fine, 2007). Although these meso-level organizational analyzes emphasize the importance of investigating local interaction orders of small groups, they often lack the close and detailed analysis of everyday interactions of the groups. In addition, albeit the focus of analysis is explicitly on the groups, local group cultures are often investigated through their contribution in creating larger organizational cultures.
In this study, I emphasize the meso-level perspective on small groups and utilize a discursive method for the examination of the everyday lives of institutional working groups. The meso-level perspective brings together the basic starting points of both explicit and implicit small group interaction studies but emphasizes the role of language and discourse in the construction of small groups and small group dynamics. I have outlined these conceptual starting points of this study in Figure 1 in which the central part of the figure can represent the core interest of this study.
Figure 1. Conceptual starting points of the study.